Hey girl, hey!

Forgiveness. Ugh. What a Debbie Downer that follows ‘Hey girl, hey!’ But that’s what is heavy on my heart this week, and I know this is a relatable topic. Another Ugh. Alright… let’s get into it.

Forgiveness is something that the average person struggles with from time to time, but what is the percentage of people who have held a permanent grudge on account of something that was allocated as unforgivable? From the number of heart-to-heart conversations that I have had with many of you leads me to believe that it’s more normal than not to have a permanent resident taking up real estate on your ‘shit list.’ The true question is ‘How do we forgive someone who has hurt us so badly?’ My answer? Maybe we don’t. Maybe there are some people who aren’t ever meant to be forgiven, or reoffenders who don’t deserve a fourth, fifth, or sixth chance at a relationship with us.

I think that it’s important to acknowledge that you don’t ever have to forgive someone until forgiving them feels right to you. Being forced to do something before you’ve come to terms with that trauma isn’t always healthy for every individual, no matter what someone may tell you. Although it may work for Sarah, it may force Jessica into a spiral. And I will tell you from personal experience that forcing yourself to speak forgiveness into fruition only builds resentment towards the frustration of the situation entirely. If you’re at a place where there simply is no forgiveness for what someone did to you or someone you love, you’re better off gifting yourself patience, understanding, and forgiving for having a human experience. I think that can offer more inner peace than gifting someone peace who may not deserve it. In some ways forgiveness feels like an issue with control rather than accepting your feelings for what they are and letting it be.

But, but, but… ‘forgiveness sets you free, gives you inner peace, and allows you to move forward.’ Do you really believe that? I don’t think that statement is true for everyone, and guilting ourselves into processing our lived-in experiences in the same way another does sounds like gaslighting us into fitting inside a square box when we’re clearly a triangle. Did you know that there is research that shows how prematurely forgiving someone can significantly harm the forgiver? Because forcing someone to feel peace before they’ve felt it doesn’t work. It’s fake. Made up. That kind of forgiveness is fabricated out of peer pressure and doesn’t exist at all.

Like many of you, I don’t have a relationship with my biological mother. I was taken aback when I learned how many of you shared such similar experiences that I had with my own mother. It was like looking in a mirror, and the only reason I felt heard or seen was because I felt brave enough to share my story, and you yours. I haven’t spoken to my bio mom in almost fifteen years, and today I am at peace with that statement. When I was a twenty-five-year-old single mother, I realized that the best thing that I could do for my daughter and myself at the time was to take a step back and asses the relationship for what it was; Unhealthy, and it was starting to make me unhealthy as an individual. To this day, fifteen years later, I am still guilted by members of my family or feel pressured to ‘just forgive her.’ I’m not there yet, and maybe that day will never come. That’s okay, because I am only human.

A lot of our childhood experiences mold us into who we are as grown-ups. I have a very clear memory of a morning when I was about four years old, and it is a memory that pops into my mind on a somewhat regular basis. Early one morning, even before the sun was up, my mother had asked me to do her a favor. I did this specific said thing, but was reprimanded very harshly for not doing it the way she would have preferred. Mind you, it wasn’t the wrong way to do it. I had just never been shown or taught that there were different ways to do this, ‘said thing.’ Fast forwarding to about a week later, my mother asked me to do this same favor once again. This time I knew better, so I followed the instruction that she had given me the week prior and did it exactly how she wanted. When I presented this task to her, she asked why I had done it in that specific manner. I explained that I had done it ‘this way’ because she told me that I must or that I would be punished worse if I didn’t. She looked at me genuinely confused and told me that never happened.

That was my first experience with my ‘other mother.’ Well, the first experience I can remember, anyways. Even at such a young age I could comprehend that one of two things had just happened: 1. Something was wrong with her brain, and she didn’t remember the other morning or 2. She was trying to trick me into thinking that the other morning never happened. Either way, this is how I learned to make amends with my mistakes; Just pretend they never happened.

It's like magic. POOF.

Expect for… it isn’t magic.

Perhaps in a different blog I’ll share with you what that task was, but it was part of what started to shape my personality and build a lack of trust in people.

Something that I have learned through this experience is empathy for people who need it the most. Instead of forcing myself to forgive her… which I tried to do many, many times and failed miserably… I forced myself to work my way backwards and try to understand why she is the person she is today. It took about a decade to get to a place without anger, but today I can honestly say that I feel a great amount of sadness for her. I have also worked on learning what my actions were to fill that void, Animals. My void fillers are my pets, because they can offer me love that isn’t conditional or judgmental, and they never remind me that I’m not pretty enough or skinny enough. I now realize that she may have been inadvertently passing on her unknown trauma onto me, but that doesn’t mean that we’ve got to subject ourselves to cruelty because they have never taken accountability for their sadness and childhood trauma.

On Instagram, we all look pretty put together or relatively normal, but it’s never true, is it? We are always wearing our poker face to fit in, but what we are doing is quite the opposite; We are making each other feel like one person is better, and the other person is less than. We are all broken in some way, but we’re all too distracted with trying to showcase the things that we’re not. So, instead of pretending and blending in I’m going to remind you that when you buy from SOCO Lashes, you’re buying from a real human that is just like you. We are all way more alike that we realize, but the more we talk about it out loud, the more we allow each other to feel seen and heard and to have the opportunity to feel like we are a part of a community of women who need each other. Somewhere along the line we have forgotten grace for people who seem rude. Like the girl who snapped at the barista for getting her coffee wrong, because maybe… just maybe, they’re just like you and me and had a really had card dealt to her that morning. We are all villains in someone else’s story and that’s something we all must forcibly learn to be at peace with. I know it can feel wrong, but it’s not our story and it’s not our journey. We’re just the supporting roles in their movie.

So, forgive when you’re ready to. Or don’t. Don’t be tricked into believing that forgiving someone will make you a complete person, because that may not be the case for you. Instead, if you’re struggling with forgiveness, try to forgive yourself for having been put in such a situation that left you a little different than you were before.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, life goes on.

Oh, yeah… and hey… fuck them. You didn’t deserve that. You’re better than them, and you’re doing great.

Alright, gotta’ go get the kiddo from school. Love ya.’ Mean it.

Jena

Weekly Song Link: https://open.spotify.com/track/1gFNm7cXfG1vSMcxPpSxec?si=322d9f91448a4e59

Playlist Link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4ZGCCJMRqzNeEuHbskj9j3?si=LoeggW4bRjSzIJJIEg5cMA